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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24450442">Prologue</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/teakturn/pseuds/teakturn'>teakturn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>25 Days of Christmas Challenge [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Panther (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, Erik Has Feelings, Erik is a Sweetheart, F/M, Family Secrets, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, Pining, Smitten Erik</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:29:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,881</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24450442</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/teakturn/pseuds/teakturn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fallon can't tell if her anxiety is due to the crowd, Erik's absence, or the letter growing damp in her sweaty palm.</p><p>After nine years she was finally going to tell him how she felt.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Erik Killmonger/Fallon King, Erik Killmonger/Original Female Character(s), Erik Killmonger/Original Female Character(s) of Color</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>25 Days of Christmas Challenge [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559182</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fallon bounced from foot to foot excitedly. A stack of college admission letters in one hand and a letter she should have given him a long time ago in the other. She was waiting for her best friend at Union Station. Her eyes wanted to travel the high vaulted ceilings. Take in the pieces of Old Los Angeles still embedded into the stone floors.</p><p>Instead, she stared, desperately, at every door, every dreaded head, and every black man she could see from her spot at the very center of all the chaos.</p><p>Where was he? Erik was never late like this. In their nine years of friendship, Erik always teased Fallon for her near, religious punctuality. She’d explained that her mom had always been late to pick her up or drop her off. Sometimes she hadn’t shown up at all. Stuff like that stuck to you and manifested in the strangest ways.</p><p>He never teased her for long, though. As soon as Fallon brought up his habit of breaking his neck to see every plane, jet, and helicopter that passed overhead he didn’t find her timekeeping so funny.</p><p>Fallon was probably the only person Erik allowed to tease him. Their friendship over the years had evolved as they aged, but the teasing would never change.</p><p>When they first met Fallon was small for her size and the only kid who knew her mom wasn't coming to get her. Her dad had given up his rights as her father the week she was born. Her mother waited until Fallon was four to do the same.</p><p>As a cute little black girl, Fallon had been interviewed by every family imaginable. Rich tv parents, you'd see on Disney channel and white trash families hoarding black kids for a check. Because her mother was declared unfit instead of giving her up no one could adopt Fallon. The state hoped to reunite them. But Fallon's mother didn't want her more than the state had anticipated. So in foster care, she stayed, stuck in limbo until legally the state was no longer responsible for her.</p><p>A background like this would have made anyone else bitter. All the orphan stories dealt with the big question all kids in the system wonder: Why didn't my mom/dad/family want me?</p><p>Fallon never wondered this.</p><p>Around the age of six, she was placed with Miss Ashley and there she stayed. Though not her mother, Miss Ashley raised Fallon as if she were her own. She'd saved her from a childhood of black plastic trash bags and a collection of court plushies. </p><p>Another thing Fallon had that all those other foster kids didn't have? Erik Stevens. </p><p>The same Erik Stevens keeping Fallon waiting like a fool in the middle of a train station. Worried, she checked the time on a nearby clock.</p><p>
  <i>Where is he? It's not like him to make me wait so long.</i>
</p><p>Fallon can't tell if her anxiety is due to the crowd, Erik's absence, or the letter growing damp in her sweaty palm.</p><p>After nine years she was finally going to tell him how she felt.</p><p>Erik had come to live with Miss Ashley when he was ten and Fallon was nine. He'd been angry and silent. His mother had been in prison and his father had died due to gang violence. Miss Ashley's had been his fourth house in as many months. When his caseworker dropped him off she warned Miss Ashley that he could be violent.</p><p>There were at least four kids in the house at that time, Fallon included. The other kids placed bets on how long he'd last. Whether he was a runaway or the kid to finally push Miss Ashley to send a kid back into the system. She had a reputation for fostering kids until they aged out and taking in siblings. If Erik was as violent as they said, he could be the one to break her.</p><p>Fallon, easily the longest resident at Miss Ashley's house, had seen kids come and go for a variety of reasons. Erik's mother was still alive at the time, she hoped he'd reunite with her. And if he had to stay, it would be nice having a brother.</p><p>For the first month, Erik kept to himself, at home at school. He ate dinner at the table with them and drove in the same car as them but he might as well have been a ghost. He wasn't all the way there.</p><p>It was his second month with Miss Ashley that had changed both of their lives forever. Fallon had wanted a brother or at least a friend. Erik became so much more than that.</p><p>Fallon had always been small for her age. The girls in her class would rather she be a mascot or punching bag than a friend. At nine years old, Fallon knew it was safer to stay in class with a book during recess. Or she risked the wrath of Rayneisha, Jasmine, and Cristobal.</p><p>One day, even sitting quietly with a book hadn't saved Fallon from the negative attention. Erik, only a grade above her, had his lunch hour the same time Fallon's class had recess. He arrived on the scene as Rayneisha had snatched Fallon's book out of her hands.</p><p>Erik became a hero in Fallon's eyes that day. Untouchable. And being his friend made Fallon untouchable. That is until his family came and got him.</p><p>The crowd around Fallon thinned as people found their trains or the exits and left. Doubt created a sinking feeling in the pit of Fallon's stomach. </p><p>
  <i>Could he have decided not to come?</i>
</p><p>Erik's family found him when he was 14. Yet even with thousands of miles separating them Erik and Fallon never drifted apart. They wrote letters back and forth, called as often as Miss Ashley's landline would let them, and dreamed of reuniting.</p><p>There had never been an 'if' between the two of them. During those five years apart they talked about what they'd do when Erik came back to the states. What colleges they'd go to and what they'd study.</p><p>Fallon wanted to be a librarian, her home away from home when the kid’s Miss Ashley took in were too rowdy to be around. Erik's ideas were looser, he had a family business to think of. But they liked to pretend he'd become an engineer. Erik liked classic cars and working with his hands. It had been easy to fantasize about a life where they saw each other every day, worked their dream jobs, and lived in their dream homes.</p><p>They'd never put a label to the feelings growing between them during these conversations. It had been too scary with them as separated, both in location and place in life, as they were. But vague dreams, filled out enough to make missing the other one a bit more bearable was all they had.</p><p>Now Fallon was trying to make these dreams real, and Erik was nowhere to be found.</p><p>"Fallon," a familiar voice from behind her washed the anxiety away like a wave.</p><p>Erik's voice was all Fallon had of him at one point. Letters written in his neat handwriting and a voice on the phone. The years may have deepened its pitch, but it was him all right. Fallon would know Erik's voice anywhere.</p><p>Turning on a dime, a smile already cracking her face, Fallon launched herself at Erik. </p><p>He was taller than she remembered, his shoulders looked a little broader too. Despite that, the scent of his skin brought to mind the years they'd spent up under each other as kids. So caught up in the nostalgia and relief, Fallon didn't notice Erik wasn't holding her back until he got a grip on her elbows and forced her back a step. </p><p>"Erik wha-" her eyes caught sight of his dark, tucked in t-shirt and the logo burning a hole through her retinas.</p><p>United States Navy. Erik had never mentioned wanting to join the Navy. Yet the longer she stared the more she realized it was real. Searching his eyes for an explanation revealed Erik’s clean-shaven head. And he’d talked for years about growing locs...</p><p>Fallon tried to laugh. She tried to grip the fleeting warmth his presence had filled her with. She ignored his shirt and focused on his eyes, "We don't hug anymore? I know we're not kids but-"</p><p>"Can we talk? Somewhere private?" Erik interrupted Fallon impatiently, the tone of his voice unfamiliar enough to finally kill the smile on her face. </p><p>"O-okay," that sinking feeling was back. It made it near impossible for Fallon to pick her feet up and follow Erik out of the lobby and out to the much quieter, much more private, courtyard.</p><hr/><p>Nine years. Nine years and yet Erik looks at her and his palms sweat. The feel of her body against his when she hugged him had nearly broken his resolve. It had been hard enough approaching her. But after fifteen minutes of watching her wait (and worry) for him, Erik felt he had to do something. </p><p>The downside was that doing something would speed up what he had to say and Erik wasn't ready for that yet.</p><p>He wished he weren't his father's son, his aunt's nephew. If Erik was his own man he'd be able to do the right thing and move on. He'd have gotten on a plane straight to Chicago for boot camp. If he was his own man Erik would have left Fallon alone, to begin with.</p><p>Still, looking at her from the corner of his eye, Erik can't find it in himself to regret seeing her, one last time.</p><p>She was still the tiny little runt she’d been as a kid. But her cloud of tight coils had tamed into a long, straight ponytail against her shoulder. Fallon was the same in some ways: the way she smelled, the nervous way she tugged at the hem of her skirt, all of it was the Fallon he remembered as a kid.</p><p>The makeup was a new addition. Lips he already knew to be soft looked tantalizing under a layer of strawberry-scented gloss. Her eyelashes were longer. When she looked through them up at Erik all the reasons he’d decided to leave for good went out the window.</p><p>"I thought we were gonna got to USC together," Fallon's voice sounded small. She couldn't keep her eyes on Erik for longer than a second.</p><p>It didn’t matter, Erik couldn't meet her gaze either. He stared straight ahead at nothing. As if it would make what he was about to do next any easier.</p><p>"Plans changed." He said.</p><p>Fallon huffed. She'd always hated vague answers. </p><p>"So that's it then?"</p><p>"Yup." Erik’s voice was hoarse, his throat thick with what he really wanted to say, how he really felt.</p><p>"Do you have anything else to say to me?" Fallon's voice rose in volume and pitch. A telltale sign she was about to lose her temper. </p><p>Erik shrugged and said nothing.</p><p>"You don't have anything else to say to me?" Fallon asked again, her annoyance rising with every repetition of the phrase.</p><p>No. Erik had a lot to say to her. First, he missed her. He’d had friends before her and he’d had friends after her, but none of them had been Fallon. No one understood him the way she did, listened to him. Everyone else blew him off because he was too young, too smart, too arrogant. They listened when he said what he wanted to hear and punished him when he spoke his mind.</p><p>Fallon had loved the way Erik’s mind worked. She didn’t always understand it, her father hadn’t been a militant from an African country. But that didn’t stop her from caring when he cared and listening when he needed to talk.</p><p>Erik wanted to tell her that he felt utterly alone, again. He wanted to tell her the nightmares were back, only this time his father’s killers had a face. His father’s killers had a name, and Erik knew it. Only, Erik knew.</p><p>When Erik didn't say anything Fallon Fallon huffed. </p><p>"Well, what does your family think of this. Wouldn't they have a problem with a <i>prince</i>-"</p><p>"They don't give a fuck about what I do and neither should you. Maybe if you'd worry about yourself-"</p><p>"Worry about myself Erik how could you say that?" The hurt in Fallon's voice was like a basketball to the gut. Erik couldn't breathe yet he spoke anyway.</p><p>"Don't act like you know anything about my situation, okay? You've done your part to ruin my life now leave me alone!"</p><p>The silence following Erik's outburst was deafening. If not for the distant sounds of cars on the freeway and trains coming in and out the station, he'd have thought the world had stopped.</p><p>Well, the world hadn't stopped, but Erik's life as he knew it was over.</p><p>"You think I ruined your life?" </p><p>Erik chanced a glance at Fallon, a big mistake. Her wide, dark eyes were shiny with unshed tears. The scar above her top lip from when she fell from a tree at their foster home trembled as she awaited his response.</p><p>Had she ruined his life?</p><p>Erik hadn't had a perfect childhood before they met. His mother had been in jail after being falsely accused of a murder she hadn't committed. His father killed by what Erik thought was gang violence. For years Fallon had been his life, the family he'd chosen before his own had found him.</p><p>But Erik would have never met his family if not for Fallon. He'd have never learned how his father actually died. He'd have never known betrayal. He'd have never questioned his place in his family, his country, the world.</p><p>He'd have never fallen in love.</p><p>"I only came cause I didn't want you bothering them about what I'm gonna do." Erik finally spoke with his eyes to the ground. </p><p>He needed to get this over with. The longer they talked the more Erik wished he was the naive little boy she'd once known. The longer she sat next to him, the more Erik wanted to pull her in his arms and let go of all the hurt inside him.</p><p>"Why, because they'd rightly talk you out of it?" Fallon challenged. The flash of fire in her teary eyes made Erik heartsick. How did he already miss her when she was right in front of him?</p><p>"No, because I don't give a damn about what you or they think. I only came here so you wouldn't look fucking pathetic waiting for me to show up."</p><p>Fallon flinched back as if he'd hit her. Erik hated himself for putting that look on her face. He used the hate to fuel the hurt inside. Just a little more and she'll be done with him. Just a little more and Erik will have lost the first person to love him after his parent passed.</p><p>"Go to college Fallon. Fall in love with someone else. 'Cause I am not the one and I never will be."</p><p>"Look at me when you say that." Fallon's voice was barely above a whisper. Had the city around them been any louder he wouldn't have heard her at all.</p><p>
  <i>As it was he wished he hadn't heard her. Could he say that again? Did he really have it in him?</i>
</p><p>A flash of Erik's father's face when his mother was sentenced. His father's face after he'd been dead for seven minutes. His uncle's face at the port when he'd arrived in Wakanda for the first time.</p><p>Fallon's face, tense with worry and hurt, filled Erik's focus once more. </p><p>Without blinking, Erik mustered up as much cruelty as possible and said, "Move the fuck on Fallon. ‘Cause I have."</p><hr/><p>"Why'd you help me? Usually, no one helps me. They just laugh when they take my books or push me." Fallon hugged the library book to her chest and stared up at Erik with big, searching eyes.</p><p>She'd almost convinced herself he couldn't talk. He never talked at home and she never saw him talking to any friends. Fallon had even thought to learn sign language in case he didn't know how to talk. </p><p>Now she was embarrassed for assuming he couldn't talk.</p><p>"I don't like bullies. My baba always told me to protect the weak." Erik deepened his voice and put a serious, adult expression on his face.</p><p>"I'm not weak!" Fallon stamped her small foot to drive her point home.</p><p>She was the shortest girl in her grade. That didn't mean she couldn't defend herself, but three against one wasn't fair. Plus the last time she'd defended herself, Rayneisha ripped pages out her library book. Fallon had to lie to the librarian and suffer through a lecture on responsibility.</p><p>Erik smirked at her reaction, making Fallon angrier. Why had she wanted him to be her friend? He was as mean as everyone else.</p><p>"You're small though. I'm bigger. That's why I had to help you."</p><p>Unable to come up with an argument against that, Fallon steps up to Erik and kicks his shin as hard as she can. Then she turns and runs for her life.</p><p>The beads in her hair clacked a steady rhythm. Her heartbeats followed along with the clacking of her hair. Every breath she took rattled in her young chest. Erik may be bigger, but Fallon was the fastest runner in her grade. He couldn't beat her at this. </p><p>Fallon ran out the gate of the school, dodging mothers with kids both smaller and bigger than her. She couldn’t hear footsteps behind her. Only the sound of her own ragged breathing and the slapping of her flats on the concrete roared in her ears. Miss Ashley will be mad she wore her church flats to school but Fallon wasn’t thinking of the punishment to come. Her mind was set on victory.</p><p>She rounded the corner at top speed, nearly tipping too far to the side as her momentum got the best her. It was then that she checked over her shoulder, she had to see how far ahead she was.</p><p>Her eyes had no time to register Erik before he was on her. He hit the corner with too much speed and wound up careening into Fallon. The force of his weight sent them both rolling into the grass of someone's lawn.</p><p>Over and over the two children rolled. When they finally stopped, Erik was on top of Fallon. His longer body pinning her to the itchy grass and staining her already ruined uniform dress.</p><p>Despite the severity of the collision, neither child got upset. Fallon laughed and smacked at Erik's chest until he finally rolled off her and to the side. He got his retaliation though. While Fallon struggled to catch her breath Erik tugged at one of her braids until she screamed</p><p>Fallon glared at him and shoved his chest, "I'm telling!"</p><p>"Tell then! You started it," Erik shot to his feet and gave Fallon a mean smile.</p><p>"I'll tell Miss Ashley you kicked me for no reason and your gonna get in trouble!" With that said, Erik took off again.</p><p>Fallon stared after him for a long moment, breathing heavily and trying to sort her thoughts. She had been the one to start it, but he called her weak! </p><p>Rising to her feet, Fallon kicked off her now ruined flats and set off after Erik's retreating back. She thought about chasing after him but her feet hurt walking on the hot cement. Instead, Fallon focused on what she'd tell Miss Ashley when she finally got home. It was bad enough she'd ruined her shoes and stained her clothes. Once Erik tells her Fallon knew she'd get punished.</p><p>When she turned the corner to Miss Ashley's house Fallon had an apology all worked out in her head. She'd be on fish duty for a week at least, and no tv until the weekend Fallon was sure. That she could handle. What she didn't want to deal with was Erik's smug face because he got her in trouble. </p><p>Entering the house the first person Fallon saw was Erik but his face was far from smug. She could hear Miss Ashley talking low in the other room. She only did that when she didn't want the kids in the house to overhear. </p><p>Fallon hadn't seen much at nine years old. She'd never been to the beach or Disneyland. She'd only just started learning her times' tables and at night she slept with a night light. Despite all that, she knew immediately who Miss Ashley was talking to.</p><p>Without saying a word, Fallon dropped her shoes at the rack by the door and joined Erik on the bottom step. She didn't touch him, sometimes that wasn't what the kids here needed, but she sat close to him just to be with him. So he'd know he wasn't alone as he felt.</p><p>Fallon didn't ask but Erik spoke up as if she had, his voice thick with tears and anger, "S-she's not coming back,"</p><p>Fallon didn't ask who 'she' was. Carefully, Fallon took Erik's hand, uncurling the angry fist until she could hold onto him. She held his hand the way Miss Ashley did when soothing Fallon after a nightmare.</p><p>"They won't let her out of jail?" Fallon whispered.</p><p>Erik's entire body shook and he sniffed. Tears fell but he didn't cry the way the other kids did when they realized no one was coming for them. </p><p>"She died, now t-there's…" Erik swallowed thickly. Fallon squeezed his hand. With her free hand, she stroked the back of his hand. She'd seen Miss Ashley do that too.</p><p>Erik couldn't finish and Fallon didn't push. It happened sometimes. Fallon knew her parents were alive, but she'd almost preferred if they had died when they gave her up. Then she would know the couldn't come and get her. Not that they didn't want to.</p><p>She wished they'd died so she knew how Erik was feeling, so she'd know what to say when he looks so sad.</p><p>"C'mon. I know where Miss Ashley keeps the junk food."</p><p>Erik looked at her: tears and need in his eyes. Fallon smiles back.</p><p>"C'mon," she tugs his hand.</p><p>Erik looked between Fallon's hand and where his caseworker and Miss Ashley talked in hushed tones. Fallon doesn't ask him to come along again.</p><p>With a rough swipe of his sleeve against his cheek, Erik cleaned his tear covered face. He gripped Fallon's hand back, squeezing it as if she were the only real thing in the world.</p><p>Together they left the adults to their bad news, hand in hand. They soothed their hurts as much as the good with Oreos, chips, and Sunny D in front of the TV. It didn't make Erik's parents alive and it didn't make Fallon's parents want her more. But to a ten-year-old and a nine-year-old, it was as close to a mother's love as they've ever experienced. </p><p>They didn't know it, but that day was the start of Fallon and Erik against the world. No one had wanted them, so they chose each other. And that was enough.</p>
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